The Lily in the Snow

by Jackie French

  ‘And now he is with God, and God is love. Nigel Vaile has his due rest at last.’

  A moment’s puzzlement, whispers, as the congregation tried to work that last bit out. The organ pealed again. The choir stood.

  Another new hymn, ‘Jerusalem’, as Jones, with Danny in his arms, moved to the coffin, Hereward, Samuel, Mr Daley the estate manager, the vicar and Lloyd taking the other positions. Unconventional, but this was their funeral. This would be played exactly as they wished, and the journalist could publish and be damned.

  ‘. . . And we will build Jerusalem

  In England’s green and pleasant land.’

  You tried to build Jerusalem, my darling Nigel, she thought. We will never know how much of what you did succeeded. But this song, surely, is for you.

  Sophie had decreed that the ‘funeral baked meats’ be more than the conventional sherry and biscuits served for People Like Us, though less than a cottager’s ‘ham funeral’ where a sustaining meal needed to be given to those who would have a hard journey home.

  This was also her chance to say what was needed to the people of Shillings before her departure. And this would give Mrs Goodenough an opportunity to farewell the boy, youth and man she had loved using all her skill and devotion. Sophie had left the choice of food to her, with the proviso that it could be left, buffet style, for all to help themselves, so the servants too could mingle with the tenants, to whom all were related. Even the drinks, to Hereward’s mild anguish, were on a sideboard.

  Crab puffs sat next to crustless sandwiches of cream cheese and watercress, egg and lettuce, cheese and pickle, ham and mustard; a platter of blini with caviar and sour cream flanked a plate of small egg and ham pies; slices of smoked salmon roulade nudged small rolls thick with roast beef and horseradish, sausage rolls and lobster in puff pastry, so that all here would have the familiar as well as the ‘gentry’ food expected at the ‘big house’.

  But the apple tarts, the apricot dumplings, the jam rolls, the sponge cake piled with strawberries and cream, the cream buns and buttered scones with raspberry jam belonged to every class, even if few could afford them often, and the cherry cake, thought Sophie, tears springing again, had been made for her alone. The cherry cake she had loved on that first glorious and bewildering day at Shillings, and made for her now, in her last months here.

  No, not her last. Just her last for a while. And that needed to be made clear. She waited till everyone had eaten (and a few children filled their pockets too), till glasses of beer, cider, fruit cup, lemonade and yes, sherry, had been drunk, and the crowd was slowly moving back and forth to the tea and coffee urns manned by the Ladies’ Guild, the only servers at today’s event, and ones even Sophie hesitated to command to mingle.

  Sophie struck her sherry glass with a teaspoon. The crystal sang. The room filled with silence and expectation, and the sound of a small voice demanding cake. Rose, of course.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends.’ Her voice broke, for they were dear friends, even young Tommy Rodgers with jam on his face and pockets bulging with apple dumplings. ‘As you all know, I am leaving on a visit to Australia in December, the visit that has long been planned. But nothing has changed,’ she managed a smile, ‘or rather of course everything has changed. However, his lordship made certain arrangements more than four years ago, before his surgery.

  ‘It is not polite to discuss money in society. Luckily we are not society today, just friends.’ She waited for the murmurs of laughter, and sympathy too. These people like me, she thought wonderingly, and then no, these people love me. And that was a gift from Nigel as well.

  ‘Higgs’s Corned Beef is not just the best canned meat on the market, and a snip at sixpence a can,’ more laughter, ‘but means that death duties will not be a problem. Unlike many estates these days, no farms or other property need be sold to pay the taxes. All arrangements will continue as before. It is my hope that Shillings will continue to provide ever more jobs for its sons and daughters, not fewer.’

  She waited for more whispers, for men to grab a glass of ale and down it in relief, for women to sip their tea and keep the depth of their gratitude from their faces. Of course the earl would have seen them right. Of course. They never doubted it. Except, perhaps, when the owl hooted and the foxes howled at two am.

  ‘The household staff, of course, will remain as always, and I hope the renovations will not be too wearying for you. No matter how long my stay in Australia needs to be, there will be no reduction in staff, and no half wages. The house will be kept in readiness for visitors, and once the builders and electricians depart, there will be visitors, close friends who need the comfort, beauty and perfect service that is Shillings.

  ‘Danny is too young yet to begin to learn his role here, but I know each of you will help guide him when we return. In the meantime, Mr Daley,’ she smiled at the estate manager, ‘Mrs Goodenough and Mr Hereward will continue as superbly as ever. But if, at any time, any one of you needs to contact me about a problem, or even advice,’ she made laughing eye contact with Tommy Rodgers, managing to stuff a bun with the cream licked out into a bulging pocket, ‘any of you, please, do write to me, or send a telegram paid for by the estate, and I will attend to it, on behalf of my son, who is now your earl.

  ‘That’s it, I think, except to say please keep eating and drinking till all of this is gone. And thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for all you have given my husband, myself and Shillings.’

  Did one clap at funerals? She could feel the indecision. Then Ethel began it, with a ‘hear hear’ too, and suddenly the room was full of clapping and chatter and relief, and hands reaching for yet another jam tart in celebration.

  See? I did it right, she said silently to Nigel.

  She could not stay inside after that. Emotion choked her; memory overwhelmed her; loss once more made the world grow dim. She slipped into the hall, as if she were heading for the lavatory, and then out the French windows in the study, the ones she had climbed through to inform Nigel she was going to marry him.

  It was cool in the orchard. Yellow apple leaves fell like snow. Nigel had promised she would miss the next English snow. She still might, unless there was an early fall this year. Nigel . . .

  She looked back at Shillings, the mellow stone, the grass kept carefully the correct length to be a carpet but to let the lawn daisies grow. But not even Constable could paint its beauty, she thought, for part of the loveliness of Shillings was that it was moving, from the smoke drifting up from its eighteen chimneys to the snowdrops that would carpet this land beneath the trees as the snow itself melted. And then there would be bluebells, and the drifts of apple blossom, butterflies soft as the cheeks of her children, and as bright . . .

  Love is greatest when we accept that all that we love is transitory, she thought. But Nigel and I deserved just a few more years. His children should have had a father for a while longer . . .

  ‘Mind if I join you, lass?’ Ethel had donned a ginger cardigan, too small across the shoulders, too long in the sleeves, and almost certainly knitted by a friend. (You should always have at least two garments made with love to wear, Miss Lily’s stylist had told her, in that world that was going to last forever, that perfect year before the war.)

  ‘I can’t see myself pushing you out of the orchard if I say no,’ said Sophie.

  Ethel laughed. ‘Nay, it would take a good-sized prince charming to carry me off. I like your James Lorrimer though. He took me to the Ritz.’

  Sophie stared. James and Ethel? No and no and no!

  Ethel clapped her on the shoulder. ‘Wish I had a camera to catch your face. First time a man has ever asked me out to dinner. We had oysters too, and he didn’t mind when I asked for a second dozen. Nothing in an oyster. Twelve of them hardly wet the sides. Had a super time. I reckon he enjoyed it too. But it weren’t romance, so you can stop looking like a stunned mullet. James wants me to do another job or two for him. Think I will too.’

  And she’
d be good at it, thought Sophie, looking at her friend with pleasure. Ethel was not a lovely lady, but women who were neither ladies nor lovely could play important roles in the world today, and even more so when steered by a master player like James. And Ethel was as strong, warm and unstoppable as the sun.

  ‘We’re going to have dinner again next week. He says he likes a holiday from being proper. Can’t blame him, neither. I could never be bothered with all that grace and etiquette stuff, no matter how much they tried to teach me at that school. But it means I won’t be coming to Australia with you, old thing. Not for a while yet, at any rate.’

  ‘Midge will be disappointed.’

  ‘I’ve been disappointing Midge on that score for years. But I’ll make it out there one day, cross my heart. By the way, what you said back there, about guests staying at Shillings . . . don’t suppose you’d let Anne and her husband stay here for a while? They can only dig in winter in Mesopotamia, because of the heat, and they’ve been living with Anne’s family during summer. Each penny they can scrounge goes on their digs. But she’s breeding again now, due in February, so they’ll be back early. Anne’s family are a stuffy lot — she could do with a place away from them.’

  ‘I’d love to have them stay here. And not just when we’re away, either.’ Sophie gestured at the many-chimneyed house. ‘It’s not as if we don’t have room. Will you come down and stay here too now and then?’

  Ethel nodded. She stroked a lichened tree trunk. ‘I’d like to. Something about this place gets to you, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sophie softly, ‘it does.’

  ‘So you really will be back?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll be back, though it will probably be a year or more, at least.’ Torn between two homes, as Nigel had been wrenched in two — though her duality was socially acceptable: two homes, two countries, the same Empire. No such tolerance for Nigel and Lily.

  Would that ever change? A hundred years earlier votes for women had been unthinkable. Would the world in a hundred years’ time accept Lily and Nigel?

  Even if it did it would be too late for Nigel. It was too late now.

  Chapter 67

  A life richly spent on doing good will cost you tears, emotional honesty, years of self-doubt. But the rewards will be impossible to quantify.

  Miss Lily, 1913

  Decisions. The horses would remain as breeding stock, even without master and mistress to ride them. So many horses had been killed in the war that they fetched incredible prices now, though Sophie expected that would change with what she saw as the inevitable deepening of the financial crisis. The financial situation might seem like a crisis now. In another two or three years, she thought, it will feel like normality.

  But horses should still bring good prices. She asked Emily to recommend a stablemaster: Colonel Sevenoaks was a renowned judge of horses, and those who bred them. And diversifying Shillings would keep the estate viable, without subsidy from Higgs Industries.

  They must plant more trees too: so useful, timber, for it could be sold as needed. And if — when — the simmering of the last war broke out into another, timber would be essential.

  The building and electrification were put on hold till they left. For a brief time the household fell back to its old rhythms: she played with the children, watched Nanny bathe them, dined in the library with Green, Jones and Violette. And, in each of those pursuits, Nigel’s absence ached like a lost limb.

  Letters were piled neatly by one of the footmen at her place at the breakfast table each morning for her to read as she forked her (perfect) kedgeree, sorted into ones she should, or would want to, read by the invaluable and almost invisible Miss Ermington. The letters were a comfort, and a promise that there was still good life to come.

  Wooten Abbey

  (An unfamiliar hand, written for the ancient woman who had been one of Miss Lily’s first English friends, from the home that had been the first hospital Sophie had organised, and where she had lived for three years.)

  My Dearest Sophie,

  I would say my heart goes out to you, but that unreliable organ is not a gift to send, so you have my love, as you have always had it.

  At my age and decrepitude I need give no excuses for my absence at Nigel’s funeral, but you will have known I was there in spirit, as I was at your wedding and the Christening celebrations of your children. I am blessed, however, to have seen you together in your visits to Wooten in the past four years. The joining of two of the people I love most in the world gave me so much joy.

  I should be able to say that in old age you get used to the loss of friends. I can’t, for if they were friends of the heart the scar remains forever, even if the pain lessens. Nor can I assure you that you ever truly recover from the loss of a beloved husband.

  But I can promise you that, in a year perhaps, the tears with which you remember him will contain as much joy at having had him as sorrow at his loss, and that your memories of him will increasingly be of the happiness you had together, not the circumstances of his death. I can also promise that life and joy slowly seep in to the empty places the loved have left.

  Write to me from Australia, my dear, and send me photographs of you and Rose and Danny. I will treasure them, for they will speak of the future to one who now mostly has only her past.

  With love always, I remain yours,

  Isobel, Dowager Duchess of Wooten

  She would treasure this letter always, in the scented sandalwood chest that kept correspondence safe from silverfish. She would keep the next one too.

  Macquarie Street

  Sydney

  Australia

  Dear Sophie,

  Nigel was a good man and a great man. The two are not the same, but he was both. I deeply regret the tragedy this has been for you, and please believe me when I say that I truly am immeasurably sorry he and I did not walk the river at Thuringa together, and watch your children play along the sandy banks.

  There will, I know, be many who say, ‘I am sorry for your loss.’ I say it too. Please, even though it is a cliché, accept the words from all who offer them. We humans are rarely good with words. A cliché is no less meaningful because it has been said so many times before.

  I do not know if this is presumption. If so, please say so, or simply order it removed: I am carving a cross for Nigel and will place it at the head of the others that I carved, in memory, in admiration, in respect and loss, and so all who pass through the Thuringa gate will see the memorial for Nigel Vaile, just as those who visit the Shillings cemetery will.

  I like to think of Nigel Vaile’s children knowing their father has a memorial in the land that is theirs too. But again, if this is a presumption or too painful or horribly inappropriate, please do not hesitate to have it removed.

  Yes, ‘I am sorry for your loss’ is inadequate. I would offer my anguish for your loss, and hope that is not a presumption too.

  Yours, always,

  Daniel Greenman

  A good letter. She was not sure what emotions it conjured up — perhaps was carefully not examining those emotions — but it left her smiling as well as sad, which she was sure was the writer’s intention.

  She picked up the next letter. The handwriting was becoming familiar to her, as were the postmark and choice of stationery. She smiled again at the expected comfort as she opened it.

  Burrawinga

  Via Warrnambool

  Victoria

  Dear Sophie,

  John and I are deeply sorry for your loss. It seems so unfair that you, who reunited us, should be parted, and so soon.

  Our lives now are a gift from you and Nigel. I am sure that Nigel has many memorials to his life, but our happiness is yet another. John is walking more easily and for longer each week.

  Long Tom the blacksmith here has modified a steering wheel so he can drive about the property: only two small arguments with trees so far, which John counts as a major success.

  I hope Thuringa has been getting the
rains, as we have. So much of New South Wales seems to have missed out. Our year has been perfect: fat lambs and no footrot.

  Daniel tells us that you still plan to return to Australia this summer. If it is no intrusion, we would so love to see you, here, or at Thuringa, or even in Sydney.

  There is one other piece of news I would like to share. Perhaps it has no place in a letter of condolence. It is very early to be sure, but we hope for a new arrival late next winter. If it is a boy, with your permission, we will call him Nigel. This too we owe to both of you.

  Yours always,

  Harriet

  The next letter was in a familiar hand too.

  Moura

  Via Bald Hill

  New South Wales

  Australia

  Darling Sophie,

  Come home. You may already be on your way here but if you are not, gather your family and get on the next suitable ship, and Ethel too if she will come. Tell her you need her and she probably will come. Tell her I need her too.

  We have so loved the fairy-tale of your romance with an English earl, but the sorrow in not meeting him is because we love you and wanted to love the man you loved as well.

  Please come home, my dear. I know you, you see, and whatever duties you may feel keep you in England, I believe this truly is your home, and the place you need to be to heal. So come, even if you must return.

  Please kiss Rose and Danny for me, and feel the kiss from me for you winging across the ocean. You cannot know how much I grieve for you, or how I wish to simply hug you.

  Love and all the sympathy it is possible to send,

  Midge

  Sophie placed the letter back in its envelope. She would keep that one as well.

  There was one more letter, and again in a familiar hand. She even knew the paper, thick and cream coloured, with dark blue ink and the Arnenberg crest at one corner.